BELVIDERE: A STRUGGLE TO COEXIST

Its name probably is derived from an Italian phrase meaning "beautiful view," and Belvidere has a rich history as one of the city's most desirable addresses.

In 1911, developers marketed property off Stanley Street as a "safe and certain investment" in the then-booming industrial city. Stately old homes and quaint bungalows sprouted along tree-lined streets and around the former Normal School, the state teachers college that evolved into Central Connecticut State University.

To the north are the broad playing fields of Stanley Quarter Park, empty and glazed with frost on a recent morning, but peppered with people walking around the pond or playing tennis in warmer weather.

To the south, rows of silent headstones in St. Mary's Cemetery mark the graves of some of the people who have lived and died in this tightly knit community.

But beneath the idyllic setting, a long simmering feud is about to boil over. It's a tale of will and ambition, pitting proud homeowners against a progressive university president, and testing a city's desire to preserve its heritage with its pressing need for economic revitalization.

Stanley Street, which bisects Belvidere, was the main thoroughfare to Hartford in the early days, and a home here combined privacy with easy accessibility.

The heart of Belvidere, however, has always been the well-kept homes that ring the university's brick buildings. Students, faculty members, administrators, working people and young families share the rows of lovingly maintained homes here.

Yellow "Children" signs dot the streets. The homes are an architectural mix; wood and stone, brick and shingles alternate from lot to lot, with the sprawling old houses of the turn-of-the-century still distinguishable.

Lately, however, a growing number of college students fond of parties and drinking, of loud music and late night hi-jinks, have been moving into the neighborhood.

The university's physical encroachment coupled with the students' shenanigans have taxed the patience and goodwill of homeowners, many of whom work at the university.

The latest controversy -- and the one that residents say is the proverbial straw that's breaking the camel's back -- involves the university's plan for a 128,000-square-foot building and a roughly 400-car parking garage in the plaza between the residential Paul J. Manafort Drive and Stratford Road.

"I'm an employee of this university. I'd love to see it grow, but it's really questionable to put in a garage with 500 cars and an entrance across from a residential neighborhood," says Mike Terezakis, a Stratford Road resident who helped form the Belvidere Blockwatch in 1999.

University President Richard Judd has told residents that the building and garage are a mere "pipe dream," still years in the future and requiring the city's approval. But his assurances haven't helped.

"The thing we're the most concerned about is preserving the residential feel of this neighborhood," says Alderman Craig Diangelo, who lives in Belvidere. "There's a fear of the expansion of the college beyond what we call the set boundaries that were put in place for CCSU."

But Judd has his side of the story. And it's one that's given a lot of credence in New Britain, where jobs and new economic blood are at a premium and where Mayor Lucian Pawlak has identified the ongoing rebirth of this once-thriving city as his central long-term goal.

The university helps put the city on the map, and it has become one of the area's most valuable assets.

"They're very assertive about being part of the community and offering their services to the community," says Bill Millerick, executive director of the New Britain Chamber of Commerce.

Millerick praises Judd's vision, saying the president has made the university "an integral part of the city" and a gateway for future economic growth."I love the university," adds Michael Murphy, general manager of the Papa John's pizza shop in Central Square plaza adjacent to campus. "Forty percent of my sales come from the university. Without it, I can guarantee this store wouldn't be open."

At the house they rent on Sefton Drive, CCSU student Mark Collins and his friends square off in a snowball fight one late afternoon. Snowballs fly between a group of students on a second-story deck and their friend in the yard below.

Collins, a senior who has lived in the Sefton Drive house since August, doesn't see what the neighborhood flap is about.

"We haven't had one complaint since we've been here," he says, shrugging.

Central Connecticut State University may grab the headlines, but there's a lot more to Belvidere than its resident university. The people who live here describe a neighborhood rooted in the past and alive with a new sense of community.

Kristine Lewko and her husband live in the circa 1912 home of his childhood.

"It's an old neighborhood," Lewko says. "But there are a lot of new families moving in. It's a neighborhood undergoing transition, with elderly people moving into retirement homes or passing on, and younger families moving in."

In the face of the obstacles that have confronted their neighborhood over the years, residents have developed a sense of camaraderie.

"People snow-blow each other's driveways. My husband does the front walks for two neighbors on one side who are single women," Lewko says.

On warm nights, families stroll along the sidewalk or sit out on their porches.

The formation of the Belvidere Blockwatch in 1999 brought many neighbors together. The group formed in response to concerns about fast drivers, graffiti and crime.

"The real thing that's come out of it is that we've gotten to know our neighbors," Lewko says. "There aren't too many neighborhoods where people know each other anymore."

Christine Baylock got to know her neighbors' generosity firsthand after a fire tore through her Belvidere home during the early morning hours of July 10, 1999.

Baylock was asleep in bed at 4 a.m. when alert neighbors noticed the smoke billowing from her home and rushed across the street to rouse here. She considers it a miracle that she emerged alive.

A group of blockwatch members and neighbors donated more than $100 to help Baylock get back on her feet. Another neighbor collected $1,200 from church members.

"It was just so unbelievably touching," Baylock says. "Some of these people I hadn't even met before [the fire].""It's a very cohesive neighborhood," Diangelo says. "I can walk my dog for blocks and blocks and know people four or five blocks away. It's one of those neighborhoods where people are always looking out for each other."

In the 1990s, increasing problems with graffiti and crime mobilized residents.

"There was just a lot of crime going on. Blatant kinds of things, people breaking into homes right in front of neighbors. It seemed uncontrollable," Terezakis says of 1999, when the blockwatch began.

"A number of people got together and said, 'We don't have to be victims. We can do something. We can work with the police. It's been a raising of consciousness, a raising of awareness that we're not victims."'

It has been successful, too. Among its accomplishments the group counts drops in graffiti and crime and a $400 grant from the city last year to replace dead and decaying trees.

Today, the blockwatch members meet regularly in each other's homes. With crime declining, the group has turned its attention to CCSU issues.

"Right now, a big concern is the college students living off campus renting homes," Diangelo says. "You've got lots of parties, lots of noise, lots of destruction to the neighborhood."

Diangelo points to a house on Highland Terrace that sold five months ago, after serving as a student rental residence.

"Every window was broken, all the doors were punched in, walls were punched in. We would call the police all the time. It took six months to clean up that property," he says.

Blockwatch members are now circulating a petition to stop the university's proposed expansion plan in the Stratford Road area.

They're also lobbying town officials to have more stop signs installed at intersections where they say speeding cars pose a danger to children playing along the streets.

"I was here long before the expansion of the college," says resident Orlando Dolce, who built his house in 1954. "We grew up with the college."

Around noon, students spill across Paul J. Manafort Drive from campus into the Central Square shopping plaza. They mill around the parking lot in their blue jeans and "Central" sweatshirts.

They file in and out of the pizza place and the Chinese food place, oblivious to the town vs. gown conflict dividing the neighborhood.

"I hardly ever see college students out here making noise," says Rebecca Stein, who has lived in a house adjacent to campus for two years. "I think it's pretty peaceful."

"Traditionally, all universities have some neighbor relation problems. It's indigenous to the university experience," says Judd, the CCSU president.

"We try to exercise care of those problems, and probably no one is ever going to be fully satisfied in every degree everywhere."

CCSU has established an advisory board charged with working with residents on community issues, and Judd says the school is planning to have a community forum soon to hash out the issues in public.

But blockwatch member Gloria Hampl doubts the sincerity of CCSU officials who say they want to make the situation satisfactory for everyone.

As evidence, she points to homeowners whose houses were damaged during construction of a university parking lot two years ago. They still haven't been adequately compensated by the school, she says.

For now, the two sides co-exist.

"Our great strength in Belvidere is we really care what happens," Hampl says.

"On one hand, I'm a loyal Central person. I support the university. This is my bread and butter. But on the other hand, I support my community, too," Terezakis says.

"I think the city, in general, considers this to be a positive influence in New Britain. We're probably the third-largest business in the community, with more than 1,000 jobs and a lot of economic benefit," Judd says.

"We're good for the image of the city. People will disagree, and we try to be responsive. [But] there is a point where I say, as president, 'This is in the best interest of the university."'

Editor's note: This is one in a series of stories looking at New Britain's neighborhoods, its residents and the issues they struggle with as they go about their daily lives.